


Suena la Campana

by sweet_rabbit



Series: Red Velvet Latte [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, allura and shiro are the perfect couple, and concerned for his well being, he is babysitting and keith is impressed, keith wants to tattoo people so he arts sometimes, lance's siblings and cousins, mall santa coran, over protective family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:33:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweet_rabbit/pseuds/sweet_rabbit
Summary: As Keith reluctantly turned around to face his fate, he reflected on how cruel this world can be. Wasn’t it around Christmas that everything was supposed to be perfect? Arguably he might have already used up his quota for Christmas magic, what with somehow lucking out with getting a date with Lance after making a dick in his latte followed by a perfect evening between the two, but to only have all of that be for nothing? Life wasn’t fair, especially when confronted by your Probably Not Boyfriend Anymore wearing skinny jeans, a fluffy coat, reindeer antler head band and a candy cane clenched between smiling teeth.And he’s holding a baby?Scratch that, he’s holding a baby and there are three other small Lance-like children running around his legs fighting with their own candy canes, another hiding behind them while a fifth maybe teenager messes around on his phone next to him.“Hey, Mr. Elf,” Lance happily continued. “Didn’t know they allowed frowns in Winter Wonderland!”





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a series now! I already had an idea for a second part (not this one, incidentally) but when I got such awesome response the gears really started turning. Thank you so much to everybody who liked Red Velvet Latte, good to know my coworkers' embarrassment was not for naught!

*~*~*~*~*

Apparently, Coran, in addition to owning a popular coffee shop, also moonlighted as the mall’s most popular Santa. It is phrased as “apparently” because despite Keith working for the man for close to four years, this particular Christmas was the first he had heard of it. He would blame the fact that for three of these years he had been in high school and thus in his supposed self-absorbed teenage phase, but he would argue he had a lot more going on in his life currently than during high school where he spent a good bit of time glaring at people. Surely he had glared at the mall Santa, as well? Then again, Mall Santa had a white beard and mustache while Coran sported a dashing ginger combo so obviously he wouldn’t have recognized his boss. It was probably for the better because he liked to keep a professional air in regards to work and in high school Keith was, well… let’s just keep it to even though it was barely a year out of the place, you couldn’t pay him to go back to that phase and mind set of his life.

Being in college and making your own decisions, Keith had decided one month in, was by far the most freeing experience he had had so hell no he would never go back to high school. Good luck to those who wanted to be teachers, again, Keith refused to deal with younger people for long periods of time. Serving them coffee was about as far as he was willing to go, save for what he hoped would be his future in tattooing where he knew he would deal with many a first time tattoo receivers for recently turned eighteen year olds. At least with that, he reasoned, it would involve a shared interest. Hopefully.

How do those last two paragraphs tie in with Keith’s current predicament? Well, it seems one plus one equals the distance to Topeka because somehow once his finals ended Shiro had convinced him to help out in Santa’s Village at the mall.

“You like photography, right?” his brother had suspiciously began a few nights ago after dinner.

Keith had side eyed him at his tone and responded, “Yeah?” If taking reference photos for his art work as well as sneaking a few/couple hundred of Lance, aka, his Maybe Boyfriend counted as an interest, then yes, he liked photography.

“So, if I were to put you in front of a camera, you would know how to work it without much training, right?”

“That question is oddly specific. What do you want?”

“Nothing!” Shiro put his hand up in surrender and laughed before reaching behind him to the counter for something. “Just curious… say, you want some eggnog? ‘Tis the season and all, right?”

“I’m supposed to say no,” Keith grumbled. “You know I’m lactose intolerant. Don’t be a jerk, you’re ruining Christmas.”

“It’s December twelfth, we got about twelve more days. Besides, this is that almond milk eggnog, or something, completely lactose free. Come on, I know you love it! Have some, celebrate the end of your finals! I’m sure you aced them, too, so all the more reason to be merry, right?”

Shiro was being a more perfect human being than he normally was, Keith had observed. He was usually kind and great at everything when not saving kittens from burning trees, all the time somehow not being obnoxious about it, yet something just felt off with their little conversation. Why was he asking about photography, especially in regards to whether he would need training or not? Shiro also seemed to know when to change the subject with bribery, considering he was fully aware of the way Keith’s brain worked and should have known it would be cranking away at theories.

However, eggnog was being offered.

Lactose Free Eggnog, at that.

Keith had to try it to make sure it was as close to the gloriously real thing as possible, right?

“Give it here,” he commanded.

Without wasting a beat, Shiro produced an already filled cup of the stuff to which Keith gladly chugged near half of in one go. All the while, Shiro smiled happily. Keith didn’t care, he had eggnog that wouldn’t make him bloated and gassy that tasted pretty close to the original. Truly it was a Christmas miracle. Except…

“Something about this,” Keith slowly started, “tastes kind of… different.”

“Well, it is dairy free,” Shiro chuckled, a glass of his own in his hand. “Of course it will taste different when they had to figure out a good substitute for all of that milk and cream.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get that but…”

“Good but or bad but?”

“I guess good but? I don’t know, it doesn’t taste bad there just seems to be something extra in here I can’t really put my finger on.”

“Christmas Joy?”

Looking back, that is exactly what was in that eggnog because after draining the entire amount and having never seen the actual carton of the stuff, Keith realized the next morning in his hung over state that his dearest brother had spiked the eggnog. “Christmas Joy” indeed. He wasn’t above tattling to their parents when they got back from the company Christmas party, but he didn’t have time for that considering Shiro quickly produced a filmed verbal contract tying Keith to fill in as Elf of Photography at the mall. He was an honorable man and so found himself begrudgingly going along with this, but Shiro’s gift budget took a huge dip in price amount as consequence.

Adjusting his jingling elf hat to attempt to further hide his identity, Keith glanced over at his brother who was helping Santa Coran with some lighting adjustments or something. He was Elf of Photography, not lights, as he had told them in order to avoid further responsibilities. Allura had only just arrived as well (yet another surprise, her and Shiro were also some of the best elves at the village, where did they find so much free time for this stuff?) since things weren’t expected to get too busy until closer to around three o’clock. It was barely one, but they always did get enough kids to see Santa for Keith to not be completely bored out of his skull.

Really, the job so far hadn’t been too bad. Keith had been expecting a million crying and screaming kids, and yes, there were quite a few who weren’t cool with Santa Coran, but overall the children had been shockingly well behaved. It certainly helped his mood in that he didn’t have to deal with any of them, just stand behind the camera and shoot, as well as not glare at anybody. That second part took practice, he won’t lie. However, it was definitely Coran who made all the difference and he could see why he was in such high demand.

His boss was always cheerful and efficient, a great combination of skills to have, and he could tell how much fun he was having playing Santa. Even technically off the clock, if he was still in his Santa costume and a kid saw him he would play the part and hand out a little candy cane from his pocket, having the kid promise to be good and not to stress out Mommy or Daddy too much this year, alright? Not to mention it made a huge difference in that he knew when to back off from a shy kid and how to approach fussy babies. Oddly enough, the solution is to ignore them and talk to the parent for a bit. Coran said that that gives the kid time to adjust without the added pressure of everybody staring at them and making demands. Nine times out of ten it seemed to work, so Keith can say he learned some stuff there.

He wasn’t sure when that would come in handy...

“Keith, are you not going to help out your brother?” Allura asked, her own skirt jingling as she walked through the picket fence. Seriously, though, why was there a picket fence? Rod iron makes more sense given the North Pole’s weather, honestly.

“Not my job,” Keith answered, taking a sip of coffee.

“No, but you could be a decent human being instead of ruining Christmas."

“Shiro ruined it the moment he conned me into this,” he nearly hissed. “Also, I am completely a decent human, unlike your previous photographer, thanks.”

“That’s ‘Elf of Photography,’ thanks, _Sprinkles_.”

“Shut up, Snowflake.”

“Sprinkles, watch your language! That is strike two, one more and you’re on the Naughty List!”

"Wait, 'two?' What was the other one for?!"

"Drinking competitor coffee."

Freezing, Keith made a sad attempt at covering the Starbucks label in shame, but it was obviously too late and instead gave Allura the stink eye over his cup as she practically floated away, clearly loving this entire spectacle. And who could blame her? She got to wear something that she actually could pull off, her rather ethereal look only adding to children’s awe of the winter wonderland, while also getting to work with her boyfriend, hopefully soon to be fiancé. Keith contained a sigh, thinking that perhaps if his Maybe Boyfriend were there, this would be somewhat fun instead of just tolerable.

However, that thought was quickly squashed.

There was no way in hell he was letting Lance see him wearing an elf costume of all things while being referred to as “Sprinkles.”

“Oh my god, Keith, HEEEEEEY!”

Dear God, why…

As Keith reluctantly turned around to face his fate, he reflected on how cruel this world can be. Wasn’t it around Christmas that everything was supposed to be perfect? Arguably he might have already used up his quota for Christmas magic, what with somehow lucking out with getting a date with Lance after making a dick in his latte followed by a perfect evening between the two, but to only have all of that be for nothing? Life wasn’t fair, especially when confronted by your Probably Not Boyfriend Anymore wearing skinny jeans, a fluffy coat, reindeer antler head band and a candy cane clenched between smiling teeth.

And he’s holding a baby?

Scratch that, he’s holding a baby and there are three other small Lance-like children running around his legs fighting with their own candy canes, another hiding behind them while a fifth older child messes around on his phone next to him.

“Hey, Mr. Elf,” Lance happily continued. “Didn’t know they allowed frowns in Winter Wonderland!”

“Uh,” Keith oh-so eloquently replied, while desperately trying to find something to lean on to keep his cool appearance in tact. “It’s, uh, early hours so I’m saving it for when it’s busy?”

Not his best come back but it made Lance giggle so Keith would take points where he could.

“Is it too early to see Santa?” Lance asked. “I’ve been put in charge of the gremlins with the very, VERY specific instructions to get Maria here’s first picture with the man.” At her name, Lance gave a little tickle to the baby in his arms, making her squirm adorably. Without even being told Keith could tell that that was very much what they were there for, given the amount of frills and lace she was put in, never mind the huge bow in her curly, dark hair.

“No, that’s not a problem,” Keith said. “We’re open, it’s just not the time when the crowds show up so this is probably the best time when you got a group.”

“Awesome! Oh, these are my little siblings and some of my cousins, by the way. Little princess here is Maria, as you might have guessed, the girl permanently attached to my legs right now is Sophie, then Jaime,” Lance patted the older boy’s head at this who in turn glared at him, “and the candy cane sword fight group is Anita, Lucas and Theresa. I assure you any property damage will be handled by my or their parents.”

“What, can’t be super responsible once money is involved?”

“Absolutely not, they knew what they were getting into by putting me in charge. I believe in freedom of expression!”

Keith allowed himself to laugh at bit at Lance’s dramatics, which the boy returned as well. He was mainly relieved that he wasn’t making fun of Keith’s outfit, so maybe he caught onto his embarrassment. Lance was nice like that, unlike his own supposed perfect older brother.

“Is he a friend of yours?” the boy with the phone, Jaime, suddenly spoke up.

“Hm? Oh yeah, this is Keith! I think I mentioned him?” Lance answered as he put a finger to his chin in thought. Keith rolled his eyes to the ceiling, it was so cute.

“A bit, yeah.”

“Actually,” Allura suddenly spoke up from behind the guy in question, “this isn’t Keith, this is Sprinkles!”

“Allura, no-”

“And I’m Snowflake! Welcome to Santa’s Village! What can we help you with today?”

Lance nearly bit his candy cane in half at this new information before sliding his eyes over to Keith and mouthing the word, “sprinkles?” in obvious disbelief. Keith could only nod and look away in shame, mentally waving good bye to any hope of making out with his Never Boyfriend.

“Well, Miss Snowflake,” Lance began while wiping a tear from his eye. “I have a few kids who would like to tell Santa what they want for Christmas. But I’ve already told them it’s no use since all of them are on the naughty list, soooo...”

At that, the three sword fighters rounded on Lance and proceeded to bat at his legs while he jokingly kicked at them, Sophie desperately dodging behind him while Jaime merely took one step to the side.

“I’m sure some arrangements can be made,” Santa Coran said, stepping up to the picket fence to greet everybody. “You all plan to leave out cookies for me right? That’s part of the deal, ‘bribery’ some call it.”

With a chorus of “yes!” and “sí!” followed by the three running over to enthusiastically grab for Santa Coran’s attention, Keith subtly made his way closer to Lance while placing his now cold coffee to the side. Well, okay, with jingle bells on his head and shoes “subtle” was never going to happen.

“So,” Keith hummed, “babysitting job?”

“If by ‘job’ you mean ‘being told to do so without any choice in the matter and no pay’ then absolutely,” Lance answered. “But when they’re this cute, how can you even consider not wanting to spend time with them?” He clearly meant Maria at this, and probably Sophie, since he bounced the baby a bit in his arms while looking down at the girl behind him. Jaime rolled his eyes in the meantime. “What about you? Extra money?”

“I guess, kinda. I’ll have to tell you the details of how this all happened later, I don’t want to offend my brother or his girlfriend.”

“Your brother is here? Oh, is he the _really_ buff elf with the super tight pants?”

Keith chose to ignore that interested tone and not let the jealously consume him. Everybody is attracted to Shiro, it was just a fact of the world.

“Yeah, we’re hoping the seam doesn’t split down the center. It’s crazy how hard it is to find green pants that fit.”

“Aw, but wouldn’t that attract new customers? There’s no written rule that only kids can visit Santa, I checked.”

“Why did you check?”

“Because Lance wants presents! Basic economics, Sprinkles, keep up.”

Keith's eye twitched in irritation at hearing his dreaded Elf Name. He may desperately want a piece of that Cuban ass, but he absolutely refused to allow such humiliation in their possible relationship.

“I swear to God, Lance, call me that one more time and-”

“So do we have five little ones visiting Santa today or is it four?” Santa Coran suddenly boomed from between them, effectively cutting off Keith’s threat. Probably for the best.

“Oh, uh, no four officially but maybe five and a half?” Lance answered. “Sophie here is a little nervous, she hasn’t picked up English as quick as the others and all the kids were saying that Santa only speaks English and were being jerks, honestly.” At the tightened grip on his pants, Lance glanced behind him and gently said, “Sophie, anda no seas penosa.”

Before Lance could turn back around to maybe apologize, Santa Coran let out a jolly laugh that only the best of mall santas were capable of before leaning over the picket fence and saying, “Claro, no hay nada que temer!”

Keith considered himself hard as nails, give or take a few Disney movies from his past breaking him, but even he couldn’t deny how sweet it was seeing the little girl’s face light up with a gapped toothed grin. She quickly showed that she was definitely a Ramirez and nearly shoved Lance out of her way to run up to Santa Coran, practically bouncing.

“Santa santa, mire! Jaime capture un Staryu allá!” she exclaimed, poking in a random direction behind her.

“De veraaaaas?! Y me lo perdí!! Oh no!”

Judging by Lance’s expression of pure adoration at the scene, Keith reflected that it was in his best interest to learn Spanish as his New Year's Resolution.

“You didn’t say your boss is damn near fluent in Spanish,” Lance whispered to Keith. "His accent is practically perfect."

“You didn’t ask,” he replied. “But yeah, it’s useful at work, definitely, but when the subject does come up he goes into this long and overly dramatic story involving Peurto Rico, a beautiful woman, and them escaping on a helicopter during an earth quake so be warned in asking him about it. Or any other language he might know for that matter.”

Lance whistled in response before Allura grabbed his attention to herd the kids together to get some semblance of organization going. Through a mix of Spanish and English, or what Keith assumed was called “Spanglish” he wasn’t sure, Lance managed to line them up youngest to oldest, Maria going first. Naturally, they got an adorable picture of the baby giving a gummy smile thanks to Lance’s antics and Keith’s quick camera work, before she got sick of it. If the tugging on Santa Coran’s beard was any indication, however, she would have much rather stayed where she was.

The other four kids were just as good to Keith’s surprise, and stayed still and patient for their turn while the others talked at length and in great detail about the gifts they wanted. Lance either had years of practice with this kind of stuff, or bribed them. Of course, it could also be a combination of both. Jaime, meanwhile, stuck to the side, eyes almost never leaving his phone. Keith could have sworn he felt him staring at the back of his head a few times, but every chance he looked back at the kid he was back to looking at his phone. Keith eventually ignored it, he had a job to reluctantly do.

And that job was especially important when Lance shoved Maria into Jaime’s very ticked off arms and scurried off to Santa Coran himself.

“Alright, time for the leader’s turn!” he declared as he nearly jumped into Santa Coran’s lap. Thankfully he was a twig and Coran was shockingly in shape, otherwise there might have been some law suits placed.

“Oh ho ho!” Santa Coran exclaimed. “And what would you like for Christmas, little boy?”

“Funny you should ask! First, I really need to be hooked up with some Lush gift baskets, can’t go wrong there, maybe some gift cards instead actually? No no, let’s keep it simple and stick with bath bombs. An entire basket of bath bombs of all weird types! Number two, socks. And number three, I needs your elf, Sprinkles, over there to personally take me and my crew on a ride in that sweet train y’all got set up here!”

Keith could physically feel his eyelid twitching to the point where he could swear it was going to never stop at the sound of his current humiliation. Slamming his jingly elf hat upon the ground, the enraged man pointed his finger at Lance and yelled, “You think I was fucking around when I threatened you earlier just because I wanna make out with you?!”

He should have caught Lance’s lips curling into a genuine cat smirk as an indicator, along with Santa Coran’s impressed eyebrow raise, before feeling the heavy weight of Shiro’s hand on his shoulder that he was screwed.

“Oh, Sprinkles,” his brother sighed behind him. “That was strike three for poor elf behavior. Looks like it’s time for consequences.”

*~*~*~*~*

The consequences, after snapping a splendid picture of Lance and Santa Coran giving finger guns to the camera, was to fulfill Lance’s wish of driving his entire group around in the train like a goddamn chauffeur. Keith tried his line about being Elf of Photography not Elf Conductor to his coworkers again, but got brushed off pretty quickly in that the current Elf Conductor wasn’t around and so he now had a promotion… despite it being punishment? Keith was clearly not supposed to question it.

Besides, his brain wasn’t allowing it with how loud Lance’s cackles were.

His Seriously Debating On It Boyfriend was all the way back in the caboose with the baby, while the other five were scattered through the other cars. There were enough for each to have their own and it was obvious that they all got a huge kick out of it if the declarations of war and land were anything to go by. What was on the strange side, though, was that Jaime decided to take the car right behind Keith’s. He had thought Lance would want that one to either flirt with him or mock him or do that thing that the two have found they love to do to each other where it’s a bizarre combination of the two. It was their “thing” and it was special. But no, Jaime quickly got into the first car without any protests. No declaration of his waiting for when they got back, just an acknowledging nod that this was happening and swiftly going straight to cart number one.

That was not Keith’s concern, however. His concern was with how red his face was. His skin was already pretty pale, a fact Lance had pointed out with subtle jabs at his artistic elusiveness, so any blush was obvious. Knowing his blush was obvious made him more embarrassed and this was just a really frustrating cycle. Then again, Keith didn’t know what he had to be embarrassed about. Lance was happy, that was great despite circumstances, it wasn’t like he had any major social groups to worry about, and honestly it was pretty difficult to recognize him what with the elf costume and how the train cover hid a good portion of his face anyway.

Yeah, Keith thought to himself, what is there to be embarrassed about? I’m bringing joy to children and to attractive guys who might want to kiss me, there’s nothing wrong with that. And it’s the holidays, everybody is doing stupid, silly shit right now. Plus, being worried about your reputation is what stupid high schoolers deal with, not college adults. I’m way too cool and above that shit! This is fine, I’m fine, everything is fine and I’m gonna get kisses after this even if it kills me!

“So you _really_ think you’re going to be my brother’s boyfriend, huh?” Jaime suddenly hissed from behind Keith.

Keith’s happy thoughts suddenly came to a screeching halt, along with the train for a second. After lots of yelling in both Spanish and English from the caboose, he quickly started it back up, his face getting impossibly redder at how much more attention he was now getting from holiday shoppers. However, that was clearly now the least of his worries.

Turning slightly, Keith saw that Jaime had seated himself with his back to Keith’s own back. It appeared he was still looking at his phone, but had an ear bud in to maybe give off the illusion that in was in the middle of a call with a friend. By having his back to Keith’s it gave him a small amount of distance for his voice to travel so as not to rouse attention from his brother. It seemed that this was all planned ahead of time when he remembered how quick Jaime was to get into the front car. Naturally Lance would want either that one or the one in the back in order to keep an eye on all of the kids no matter how closed off each car was.

His plan was working if the Christmas caroling Lance had gotten the others to start up was any indication.

Keith unconsciously furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance.

“I don’t ‘think,’ kid,” Keith quietly answered. “I know.”

“Pfft, that’s rich,” Jaime said. “You don’t know what Lance has been saying about you to all of us, do you?”

“Doesn’t matter what he’s saying, so long as I’m in his thoughts enough for him to talk about me to all of you, that’s pretty freakin’ great in my books.”

“And you’re also acting like Lance has a say in this.”

At that Keith slid his eyes to the side to get a view of Jaime in his peripheral. “What the hell does that mean? He in an arranged marriage or something?”

“Or something.”

Okay, this was not making much sense but that was to be expected. Keith could tolerate small children, they were annoying and loud but they would at least listen to you. Young teens? Forget it, they were annoying and loud and also thought they were smarter than you. Example A was sitting right behind Keith.

“See,” Jaime continued, taking Keith’s silence as a response, “Lance has been talking about you for an annoyingly long time. Like since you guys were in high school. You remember Lance from high school?”

“N-Not really,” Keith murmured. He was still regretting that, admittedly. So many wasted years…

“Hm… anyway, we know a lot about you, Nedlir.”

“The hell did you just call me?! Did you curse me in Spanish?”

“Please, I won’t stoop that low. I **want** you to know when I’m insulting you. But yeah, Lance talked about you at least once a week when he was in high school for, like, somewhere around two years.” Keith couldn’t help the little bit of pride in his chest knowing how much attention Lance paid to him in school. He also couldn’t help noticing how Jaime didn’t explain the “Nedlir” thing. “Don’t preen, jerk, it was all bad!”

“You’re not telling me crap I don’t know, I know he didn’t like me. It's the worst kept secret ever.”

“Exactly, Nedlir! So think about it: Lance, Mr. Adorable Sunshine in our house, going on and on about this guy who he can’t stand for literally years, right? Telling us all the shit you’ve pulled, about how you skip classes and already have tattoos and piercings. How you always wear a stupid leather jacket and ride a motorcycle all dangerous and law breaking, and that you more than likely stole the parts for it from the metal shop.”

“Shut up, they couldn’t prove anything.”

“Isn’t that what a guilty person says?”

“Doesn’t matter after you’ve been declared innocent, does it?”

He scored himself a mental point at Jaime’s annoyed huff, but still felt beads of sweat forming on his brow. Keith had a good idea where this was going.

“Basically, you’re known as a ‘bad boy’ in our house. A bad influence. Dangerous. Right?”

Keith kept his eyes in front of him.

“Then last Tuesday, Lance comes waltzing in way later than expected. And what do you know, he was out on a freakin’ _dinner date_ with none other than Bad Boy Keith!”

Yup, this was going exactly where he thought it was. Keith was not happy.

“Keith!” Lance suddenly yelled from the back. “Aren’t you supposed to be ringing a bell or something? You know, alerting shoppers of our path? Keeping people safe? Take note, kids, this is important!”

“Yeah, Nedlir,” Jaime agreed. Keith could hear the smugness in his voice practically dripping out. “Ring the bell.”

“Ring the bell, Keith! Toca la Campana!”

“Also, take a right up here, there’s a Vaporian in the area and that’s one of Lance’s favorite pokemon. He’ll love it. And me.”

“TOCA LA CAMPANA, SPRINKLES!”

“TOCA LA CAMPANA! TOCA LA CAMPANA!” the other four kids began chanting, over and over again, an endless barrage of Spanish that Keith could only vaguely guess was an order to ring the bell as if he were a hunchback.

“Toca la Campana, Nedlir. Or do you not want to date Lance?”

“TOCA LA CAMPANA!”

“Not that it matters at this point, you should have seen the look on our parents’ faces when Lance starting going on about you guys’ date. Not to mention when Alexander and Gabby found out.”

“TOCA LA CAMPANA!”

“They’re our older brother and sister, by the way. And yeah, they hate you on principal, too.”

“TOCA LA CAMPANA!”

“Come to think of it, you probably don’t have to ring that bell. It doesn’t matter if you upset Lance to the point where he won’t date you.”

“TOCA LA CAMPANA!”

“Since so long as our family has any say in the matter, you won't be laying a single hand on Lance, **ever**.”

Keith quickly grabbed the tiny steering wheel and furiously jerked it and the train to the right, causing only the cart right behind his own, aka Jaime’s, to be caught off guard if the loud SMACK! was anything to go by. Sure enough, there was an annoyed “ow!” quickly followed to which Keith gleefully took the bell and gave it a good ring making the rest of his passengers cheer in joy.

“Hey, Lance!” Keith called behind him. “Jaime, here, says that there’s a Vaporian around here and you love those! That true?!”

“Yeah!” Lance yelled back, smile obvious in his voice. “Isn’t this off route, though?!”

“I don't know, but who cares?! I break rules all the time, especially for cute dancers!”

“Hee hee, Keith, shut up!”

It was at that point where Keith reflected that yes, he may be wearing an elf costume while driving a kiddie train around an incredibly crowded mall during the holidays, but he would be damned if he was also going to be threatened by an obnoxious teen in regards to whether or not he was allowed to date said brat’s older brother. He had a hell of a lot more pride than that.

“I hope you know you’re on my shit list, Nedlir.”

“I’ll try and remember that when I got my tongue down your brother’s throat.”

*~*~*~*~*

Keith was fired.

But it was whatever, because, really, it wasn’t like he was going to put down “Elf of Photography for two weeks” on his resume, anyway. He did say he’d finish the day and show Shiro and Allura how to work the camera, at least, since he did cause quite the stir among the kiosk workers. Who would have thought a right turn into the water fountain in a kiddie train could cause such a ruckus?

Lance was happy, though. They got a Vaporian.

And Jaime was pissed because he had been pawned off with baby Maria again along with instructions to stay and watch the others while Lance quickly made his way over to Keith.

“Thank you so much,” he said, letting out a huge sigh of exhaustion now that he was a safe distance away from the little ones.

Keith raised an eyebrow in silent question. He wasn’t aware that you got thanked when you were fired.

“Like, sorry you were fired, but it seems you aren’t tore up about that so I don’t feel liked you need my pity?”

“I don’t, you’re good.”

“Good. Just... thanks for putting up with us. I swear I was about to lose it after lunch, they made such a huge mess and Jaime wasn’t even trying to help, so you guys were a great distraction. Especially with that train stunt, they loved that.”

“You’re welcome.” Keith admittedly said that in a sarcastic tone given the circumstances, but Lance just laughed and lightly shoved his shoulder.

“You know what I mean! Really, though, I was so happy to see you here, it really improved my day. I love those kids, but god, did I need a break. Both mentally and physically, you were a huge help.”

Keith felt his heart beat a bit faster at that. It wasn’t every day that somebody tells you that just seeing you made their day better. Though thinking about the coffee shop, he could relate. “I don’t think I did much except get angry, but I’ll accept your praise.”

With a smile and quick kiss to his cheek, Lance waved bye with a promise to see him on New Year’s Eve at Hunk’s.

Ignoring Jaime’s squawks of anger, Keith turned around with a hand to his cheek and tried not to day dream about ringing in the new year with his For Sure Boyfriend’s and his first real kiss together.

 *~*~*~*~*

**Author's Note:**

> *furiously drums fingers* THIS did not want to get written. I had half of it done, then a car crashed into a telephone pole directly in front of my house (I live fairly close to downtown), it was fixed quickly but I didn't have heat and STILL don't two weeks later and it's amazing how little you want to do when you're freezing. Then I got a stomach virus, worst I've ever had, had to take two days off of work which has never happened and it's the worst time of year to have to do so and now I'm a 27 year old lady being coddled by my parents at their house during the holidays with lots of love and finally FINALLY have enough energy and body warmth to finish this. Hopefully it was worth it, but I like it so I suppose it is? Yes? Yes. Now for some translations thanks to yisusfishus:
> 
> Suena la Campana (ring the bell)
> 
> Anda no seas penosa (don’t be shy)
> 
> Claro, no hay nada que temer! (it’s fine, you don’t have to be scared!)
> 
> Santa santa, mire! Jaime capturo un Staryu allá!! (Jaime caught a Staryu in the over there!)
> 
> De veraaaaas?! Y me lo perdí!! Oh no! (What?! I missed it! Oh no!)
> 
> TOCA LA CAMPANA (ring the bell!)


End file.
